27th Monday in Ordinary Time

From the Word of the Day

He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds, and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10: 34-37)

How should we live this Word

The man on a journey is the protagonist of the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. We are shown a living tableau of the various persons that Jesus shows us in this man who had been robbed and wounded on his trip. He was not helped by the two qualified passersby, a priest and a Levite, but by a man coming from Samaria, a land considered to be the country of heretics who did not practice the Mosaic Law.

Our attention is drawn to an important expression: “he had compassion”. This compassion is so authentic that the Samaritan not only went close to him, but he took care of the poor man, bound up his wounds after pouring oil on them, and pays for his stay at the same place where he was stopping. He then entrusted him to the hotel keeper, paying him to continue to take care of him. All this was done because the Samaritan “had compassion”.

Let us take some practical teachings from this:

Above all, having compassion is a sign of sensitivity and a good heart. However, we cannot stop at the level of sentiment; it must be translated into gestures of true fraternal help.

The priest and the Levite, because they belonged to the sacred, should have been the first ones to care about the man in such serious difficulty. Instead, they reveal an arid and closed heart as they pass by the wounded man, indifferent to his suffering.

The parable does not say that the priest and Levite had urgent matters to attend to. What is shown is only their going away without any other interest.

The quick departure of those two highlights by contrast, that of the Samaritan and his compassion that acts for the good.

Lord, Your Gospel is a mirror for me today. Help me to be attentive to what happens around me and not only in my house. Grant me the grace of having an operative compassion. Let not my heart be sullied by indifference.

The Voice of Antonella Lumini, a Hermit in the City

Christianity urges us to be free from every kind of indifferent power, possession, and abuse.